anti-Palestine?

In response to my two blogs about Palestinians, I (amongst others) received the following email.

Hello Andre, I always read your pieces with joy and pleasure! Your (Biblical) explanation about the Palestinians, I find very interesting. Now I have a question: By putting it the way you did, the Palestinians are given (humanly speaking) a rather negative role with respect to Israel. And if you happen to be “pro-Israel,” then it looks as if you are against the Palestinians. I know that we are not to be for or against people, but I find this separation line somewhat difficult to see … Recently, I heard someone say something about a promise given to the Palestinians. Do you know something about this? Blessings,

I can readily relate to this reaction. Just imagine you are a Palestinian and you get to read about your people that it will go very bad for them in the future. That is not pleasant. Nevertheless, I like to make a few marginal comments. 1. Not only the Palestinians will play a malicious role in the end-time scenario of Scripture. Strictly speaking, this is true of all nations. Every nation will be gathered to fight against Jerusalem (Zech.14:2; Joel 3:2) and there, the LORD will fight against all of them. 2. We also have to keep in mind that not only the Palestinian, but also the Jewish state will be completely swept away. The entire land of the Jews will be destroyed to the degree that no living inhabitant will be found in it. As for any survivors (the remnant), they will have found a place to stay outside the land in the wilderness. Among other passages, one can read about this in Isaiah 6:11-13; Ezekiel 36:33; Matthew 24:15,16; Revelation 12:6, etc. It is not based sympathy for Zionism that I have presented the Palestinians as being the Philistines of the end time. After all, even the Jewish state will experience great disaster. It is all apart from sympathies and antipathies, for that is not what it is about. As the prophets have spoken, so it will be fulfilled. 3. However much every nation will encounter calamity from the hand of God, for those who believe (=take Him at His word) there will always be a refuge. That is a universal, Biblical truth. At the time of the end, the message will resound: “who endures to the end will be saved” (Mat.24:14). That is a message to individuals, regardless of the role the nation, to which they belong, will play. 4. The judgments which the nations of the world will experience, one can properly understand only in the light of what they will produce…

… for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Isaiah 26:9

The word “judgments” is to be thought of as applying ‘adjustments’. Everything will be “set right”, no matter how painful it will be.   5. There is indeed a very remarkable promise for the remnant of the Palestinians after the destruction of their land. According to Zechariah (9:7) they will receive the status of leader (CV: mentor) in Judah and “Ekron as a Jebusite”. That is to say, the remaining inhabitants of Ekron will dwell as if in Jerusalem (Jerusalem=Jebus; 1Chron.11:4). Also Psalm 87 speaks of this; one of its “rhymed stanzas” correctly expresses it, as follows:

The Moor with the Philistine and the Tyrian Shall soon, O Zion, throng thy holy gate; In gladsome strains we’ll hear her sons relate: “These all were born within the walls of Zion.”

——————————— translation: Peter Feddema

Delen: